D Rebounds in Federal FY2000 Budget

Budgets for Top Federal R&D Agencies The U.S. House of Representatives delivered a bumper crop for science in its fiscal year (FY) 2000 budget--but the R&D harvest still has a slight chance to be delayed or threatened by cows. Congressional moos reportedly filled the House chambers after the announcement that Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) planned to delay voting on a bill that would finalize a $1.8 trillion budget. Kohl's beef had nothing to do with science, but rather, with dairy subsidies that he says unfairly help New England farmers while letting Midwestern milkers languish. But science, at least, hasn't languished in the FY2000 budget proceedings. After summer concerns that R&D could take a several-billion-dollar hit in efforts to keep figures under caps established to meet balanced budget requirements, lawmakers silently let the cap argument slide. "The caps technically exist. In practice, they've been blown," comments Kei Koizumi, the head American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) policy analyst. Koizumi estimates that the caps have been "blown" by about $14 billion. To make up some of that lost fiscal ground, congressional Republicans first proposed a 1 percent across-the-board cut but were rebuffed by President Bill Clinton's veto earlier this fall, leading to budget negotiations that have long surpassed the Oct. 1 FY2000 deadline. The House and Clinton finally struck a deal before Thanksgiving, agreeing to a 0.38 percent across-the-board cut, which isn't a "real" across-the-board cut; Clinton effectively argued that agency officials should have jurisdiction over how they achieve the reduction within their own budgets. Even with that stipulation, federal R&D programs overall will be very strong this year--with solid increases to most of the large agencies that pay for peer-reviewed research. The Senate still was to vote on the budget, and Clinton's signature was needed after that. Of course, even the rosiest of appearances can be deceptive in a massive federal budget. The FY2000 budget has an abundance of earmarks (less politely called pork). "More earmarking in R&D budgets typically means less available for competitive, peer-reviewed grants," Koizumi notes. That effect is especially obvious in this year's Department of Energy (DOE) and Environmental Protection Agency budgets (see agency analysis, page 15). The other letdown, at least to the administration, may be the prospects for IT2, a multiagency computing initiative that was only partially funded. Several high-ranking members of the Clinton administration unveiled and promoted it at the 1999 AAAS meeting. But it received only partial funding under the National Science Foundation and Department of Defense, and no funding from the DOE. (One White House science official, when questioned about IT2's support, replied only, "Overall, we are pleased with the outcome for [Science and Technology].") And even as biomedical lobbyists celebrate the National Institutes of Health's rising prospects, some privately fear that the party may soon be over. NIH director Harold Varmus, whom many credit for leading an NIH renaissance, is leaving at year end. Staunch NIH supporter Sen. John E. Porter (R-Ill.) is departing at the end of this congressional session. And some Republican members of Congress are beginning to question whether the agency can really absorb sustained increases and spend the money wisely. Though April Burke, president of Lewis-Burke Associates Inc., a Washington lobbying firm specializing in science, acknowledges that such sentiments exist, she doesn't share them. "I'm not nearly as pessimistic as some--NIH has a great track record, and medical research will continue to give the public its bang for the buck." Howard Garrison, Federation for the American Society of Experimental Biology (FASEB) policy director, adds that NIH naysayers may be getting ahead of themselves; the agency will, pending Senate action, post back-to-back $2 billion-plus increases. "It would be nice to celebrate one victory before we start to worry about the sky falling." And David Kaufman, FASEB president, adds that NIH has already addressed its biggest congressional question--can the agency responsibly manage giant increases without rampant waste? "I think that's a reasonable question," Kaufman notes, before answering that last year's dispersal of a bigger grant pot was handled "profitably and reasonably." However, the question remains whether that can continue with the NIH directorship vacant at year's end. The following agency-by-agency analysis is based on interviews with lobbyists, legislative aides, and science policy specialists. Department of Defense The largest public agency funding science got its first R&D increase above inflation in a decade. Overall DOD R&D rises 3.4 percent, or $1.3 billion, to the FY2000 level of $39.3 billion. But there is still a "good news, bad news" feel to the final appropriation. The good news? Life sciences and medicine fared especially well. The portion of DOD's budget containing medical research increased by 11.5 percent to $8.7 billion, and Congress set aside an additional $275 million primarily for cancer research. The bad news? The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funds some controversial research (see related story, page 1), took a $75 million, 3.9 percent hit, to $1.9 billion. The agency also only received $60 million of a $100 million request for its part in the new IT2 project. National Institutes of Health The NIH received a $2.3 billion increase for FY2000--its second consecutive $2 billion-plus hike--putting the agency's total budget at nearly $18 billion. "The only question is how much of that might be delayed until September of next year," Koizumi notes. As part of an accounting trick, Congress had originally proposed that $7.5 billion of NIH's total budget be delayed until the last day of the fiscal year, but Clinton vetoed that measure, mainly for other reasons. The House-approved version of the spending bill calls for $3 billion to be delayed until Sept. 29. "NIH had said earlier in the summer they could live with a $4 billion delay," notes Garrison. How that delay will affect researchers receiving NIH grants remains to be seen. One scenario has some grantees receiving half their funds once the grant is approved and the other half after Sept. 29, but the agency may be able to handle some of the lag in funds with other accounting tricks. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Both NASA's overall budget and the chunk it spends primarily on peer-reviewed research dipped again. The agency will receive $13.653 billion in FY2000, down slightly from the FY1999 total of $13.652 billion. The Science, Aeronautics, and Technology fund, which provides grants to researchers outside NASA, dropped even more, from $5.654 billion in FY1999 to $5.607 billion for FY2000. However, Life and Microgravity Sciences got a boost for the second consecutive year, up $13 million to $277 million. Department of Energy Total DOE R&D rises 3.2 percent, a $223 million increase--but that hike doesn't necessarily mean more money for peer-reviewed research. While the department's Office of Science budget rose from $2.698 billion in FY1999 to $2.8 billion in FY2000, most of those increases were earmarks. The two biggest peer-reviewed programs within that office's jurisdiction actually remained fairly flat--with the DOE's portion of the Human Genome Project's funding stuck at $90 million for two years in a row, and biological and environmental research receiving a minuscule bump from $437 million in FY1999 to $442 million in FY2000. The DOE failed to receive any money to pay its proposed portion of the IT2 computing initiative. It also was awarded only about half the money requested for construction of the $1 billion-plus Spallation Neutron Source, about $100 million rather than the $214 billion needed to keep the project's completion on target. National Science Foundation The NSF continues its upward trend, climbing 6.6 percent to $3.91 billion from the FY1999 total of $3.67 billion. The agency's largest budget item--research grants--occupied the biggest chunk of that overall increase. Researchers will have a shot at a grant pot worth $2.96 billion, nearly $240 million more than in FY1999. Also, two of NSF director Rita Colwell's pet projects got funded. Her biocomplexity initiative received $50 million, and the information technology initiative received $126 million--$20 million less than she requested. U.S. Department of Agriculture The USDA's largest chunk of money devoted to university-funded research remains frozen at $119.3 million for FY2000--meaning that, after inflation, university scientists will be competing for a smaller pot of National Research Initiative grants. The Agricultural Research Services (ARS), USDA's in-house research arm, fared better. The ARS received $834.5 million for FY2000, up from $781.5 million in FY1999. Federal ag bricks-and-mortar spending declined, though, from $56.4 million in FY1999 to $52.5 million. Food safety, Congress' darling last year, received no boost in funds for this fiscal year. However, the president's requests for research funds for pesticide alternatives were finally met, with $5 million in new grant money and an additional $2 million for methyl bromide alternatives. Department of Commerce After withstanding yet another congressional challenge to eliminate Commerce, the agency--and its two science branches--survived. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration receives $613 million in FY2000, up 2.1 percent from the FY2000 total of $600 million, while the National Institutes of Standards and Technology receives a 0.4 percent blip, from $468 million in FY1999 to $470 million in FY2000. Environmental Protection Agency The EPA received a $2 million hike, to $6.6 billion for FY2000. However, the agency's Science and Technology fund took a $15 million, 2.2 percent hit, to $645 million for FY2000. Earmarked projects--which range from R&D ventures to Superfund site cleanup--increased in both number and dollar amounts. In FY2000 Congress and the president approved 314 such projects at a total of $475 million, versus 198 earmarks at $423 million in FY1999. Department of Interior Interior loses ground slightly, with $564 million in FY2000, compared with $567 million in FY1999, a 0.6 percent slide before inflation.

D Rebounds in Federal FY2000 Budget

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